by Peter Morris in Los Angeles on April 9 2003
Given the people on screen and those overseeing it as producers (STEVEN SODERBERGH and GEORGE CLOONEY) I wanted to like this film a lot more than I actually did.
The cast is a terrific one: WILLIAM H. MACY ( “Fargo” ,”Boogie Nights” and fifty others but check out “State and Main” for a good laugh about film-making), LUIS GUZMAN ( “Traffic”, “Out of Sight”, “Punch Drunk Love” et al), PATRICIA CLARKSON (“Far From Heaven” “The Green Mile”, “The Pledge”), the up and coming SAM ROCKWELL (“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind “, “Galaxy Quest”, “Charlie‘s Angels” ) and the late MICHAEL JETER (“The Green Mile”, “Waterworld” “Patch Adams”) not to mention a brief appearance by GEORGE CLOONEY as a wheelchair bound safecracker- but sadly it didn’t quite rise to the levels you might expect from such a talented cast.
The basic plot is that a bunch of really bad criminals (and when I say “bad” I mean not very good at what they do!) stumble upon the job of a lifetime, or as they call it a “Bellini”, but in fact it turns out to be a “kaputchnik” i.e. a complete disaster.
The film is a remake of, what I’m told was, a classic called “Big Deal on Madonna Street” - I haven’t seen that so I can’t compare the two but have to report that I couldn’t classify “Collinwood” in that category under any circumstances.
The performances aren’t bad but something about it just doesn’t quite click - it may have something to do with the way it’s edited because it does come in at a tidy 86 minutes and you just know that they shot more than that but this is what they’ve chosen to give us and so we can only imagine what the rest was like.
Being generous I’m not a fan of slapstick humour and this does contain a fair amount of that - I did laugh at one joke which involved the wheelchair bound CLOONEY in disguise but I won’t spoil it for you in case you choose to see the film. I, however, can’t really recommend that you do.
If you like slapstick it’s possibly a 6 out of 10 but for me and only because I liked all the actors......
Celebrities Worldwide Rating : 5 out of 10
UK Release Date: 25th April 2003
David Jensen Photography:
https://www.davidjensen.co.uk/
